Cape outreach worker dishes out tough love

Inside his Subaru hatchback, Tom Naples, the Cape's only street outreach worker, keeps the tricks of his trade.

MARY ANN BRAGG

HYANNIS — Inside his Subaru hatchback, Tom Naples, the Cape's only street outreach worker, keeps the tricks of his trade.

In the back seat, used hooded sweaters of all sizes spill out of a plastic bag.

Matches and dirty pennies fill a change holder.

A neck warmer winds around the rearview mirror.

On this winter day, with temperatures barely above 30 degrees, Naples makes the Cascade Motor Lodge his first stop.

In a back part of the motel lives Ann Rita, 51, lean and smiling, muscular, with gray locks and a daunting reputation — "deep woods," in and out of homeless shelters — and the owner of a backpack fit for a weightlifter. She reveals later that it contains a cast-iron skillet, among other items.

Ann Rita tends toward suspiciousness and thinks her identify is stolen so she won't agree to sign government paperwork that could help pay expenses, Naples says. He first found her sleeping under a picnic table near the Bourne Bridge, although she challenges Naples on that: "I wasn't lying under it, I was lying on top of it."

And Naples still owes her some hot dogs that she requested.

Still, for Naples, Ann Rita represents a serious win. Not only has she "come inside." But she's somehow come into the karmic, serendipitous world of Naples, who also needed someone to take care of a small dog. Ann Rita agreed to be that someone. She's keeping the little white dog in the motel room. A leash lies on the twin bed.

"That's really keeping her centered," Naples says of the dog. "It's funny how it all works. Sometimes the puzzles fit."

Naples, 50, works for the Cape Cod Council of Churches. The total annual budget for the outreach program is $49,000, including his salary of $39,000, travel, car expenses and emergency housing funds. It's totally funded by grants and donations, and although those can vary with the economic times, council executive Diane Casey Lee says she is committed to finding money for the next fiscal year.

Back in the Subaru, which the council owns, Naples pulls his sunglasses down from his forehead to his nose and turns the car out of the motel parking lot.

The New Jersey native, and the son of two teachers, favors a cracked leather jacket and gloves with a New York Yankees logo. He combs his dark hair straight back with a gel that creates curls at his neck, and keeps his eyes peeled for any kids on the street who look lost. He knows every psychiatric and detox center in the region. He checks the bus stations and ferry boats. He drives down Main Street at least 10 times a day.

"These two I know," Naples says, indicating two people near the Hyannis post office. "They're doing well and housed."

A few seconds later, Naples points to a short, round man on the opposite side of the street.

"He was homeless, and he's in a shelter."

Down an alley near Winter Street, another man is digging cans out of a dumpster. But Naples drives on by. He recognizes the man and says he already has a place to go.

"This is basically what I do every day," Naples says.

In his nearly four years on the job, the work in this seaside village has changed for the former Coast Guardsman. Once, he did wide-ranging checks of homeless camps in the woods and he kept up better, for example, with the man who decorated his outdoor quarters off Route 132 with bird feeders, bookshelves and cardboard keep-away signs. He used to find more frostbitten men and women in places like baseball dugouts.

But Naples has helped get many of these people inside.

"I have people come up to me. I swear to God," Naples says. "I'll be at the mall, a little store or somewhere, and they'll come up and hug me. And they'll say, 'You know what? I still have a roof over my head. I'm working. I'm a taxpayer."

At the same time, pressure from business owners and town leaders about homeless people gathering in downtown Hyannis has also drawn Naples' attention away from the camps in the woods.

But it's another trend that particularly worries Naples.

"I'm starting to see younger and younger faces," he says.

On the street near the Hyannis fire department, Naples spots a young man — maybe 22 or 23 — walking on the sidewalk, headphones in his ears.

Clean-looking, dressed in a hooded khaki coat and baggy pants, he's got a loose, even loopy walk. Nonchalant. Not a care in the world.

Naples honks the car horn. "This kid's in crisis," he says, leaning forward a bit. "I took that kid to Cape Psych yesterday ... off the charts."

Naples slows for a red light, then takes a sharp left back.

"Let me see how he reacts," Naples says, as he drives through a parking lot and over speed bumps. "This kid has been homeless five or six years. His father's in prison. It's a sad story. Post-traumatic stress from being beaten, and bipolar."

The Subaru comes out near the CVS on North Street. Still the young man hasn't caught on.

"I actually feel sorry for this kid." Naples honks the horn again and catches the young man's attention. The car pulls into the pharmacy lot, and Naples parks at an angle. He pulls up the emergency brake and climbs out. He stops the young man and puts a hand on his shoulder.

They talk for only a few minutes, and Naples returns to the car. It went so-so.

"He's the one that, it's like tough love with," Naples says, as he backs the car out. "I just said, 'You've got to change your karma.' It's bad. He just said it. He just said the whole thing to me. 'I've been in and out of jail all my life.'"

The young man walks away.

Naples will keep an eye on him.

Perhaps because he lost a brother to heroin.

Perhaps because of his mother's strong religious beliefs.

Perhaps because he knows young women and men can get hardened to the life of a shelter — or a jail.

"He doesn't tell people what to do," says Hyannis social worker Arlene Crosby of the Duffy Health Center. "He gently suggests, 'When you're ready, Bubba, you know where I am.'"

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